Stephen Strasburg suffered his first loss of the season this afternoon.

The lore of Stephen Strasburg includes a 14-strikeout debut. It includes a triple-digit fastball and a knee-buckling curveball. And it includes, to date, a wildly successful recovery from Tommy John surgery.

It may now also include the case of the unfortunately placed ointment.

As if the top of the first inning of today's 6-1 loss to the Padres — featuring a routine fly ball falling between three Nationals fielders, a sudden deluge requiring an eight-minute rain delay and three San Diego runs — wasn't strange enough for Strasburg, manager Davey Johnson suggested afterward his young ace was also bothered by the misapplication of some heating balm.

"I can't really tell you what the problem was, but some hot stuff got misplaced," Johnson said in cryptic fashion. "It was on his shoulder, and evidently … I don't know how it got to where it got. But it wasRead more »

If Stras's ointment got to where I think it got to, he has my sympathy and admiration. That happened to me once when I was a young lad and I remember I was in agony. I sat in a bathtub of ice cold water trying to turn the heat down. I can't imagine trying to pitch a ball game while going through that.

maybe stras should change his walk on music to some buster poindexteror make sure that the fly goes in the ointment, not vice versathat's enough. i'm getting on my own nerves already. glad i was there for the HR, though. and back tomorrow.

And we totally have to get McCatty on a wired Wednesday. I'll bet the two mound visits today were classics. :-)Seriously, Stephen did seem to be having problems getting a grip in the first. Should we be worried about why he was using the ointment to start with?Re. our offense, I wasn't here in those days, but it reminded me of stories I'd heard about the Senators of Frank Howard's day. The Nats lost, and Harper homered.That was a dopey rain delay. It did cause us to strike up a conversation with the gent next to us, though. I was joshing about the umps not hustling back onto the field afterwards, and he somewhat sheepishly revealed that he was an ump. Kinda cool to have one's own personal ump sitting nearby. I kept asking him stuff. So, what do you think of that guy's strike zone? Shouldn't there have been an error there? And so forth and so on.

"I can't really tell you what the problem was, but some hot stuff got misplaced," Johnson said in cryptic fashion. "It was on his shoulder, and evidently … I don't know how it got to where it got. But it was uncomfortable, to say the least."WASH HANDS WELL BEFORE YOU GO TO #1

Hmm… what about "White Heat, Red Hot' by Judas Priest? Or Snoop Dogg's "Drop it While it's Hot"?Maybe best would be MIMS' "This is Why I'm Hot"In ten years, Strasburg will laugh about this. But on Sunday, he will plan to take his frustrations on the O's.

Could be. Dude has tons of energy, as sick as he is.That old-school, prestigious way of Scooter said… 1a, I heard that Ferris saw 1776 the other night. I guess he's in town; maybe he was there today? Seems someone here prolly woulda heard about it, though. May 16, 2012 12:39 AM

It concerns me that everybody is talking about the weather,atomic "balm", stuff like that, why do we need to go there at all. The Nats lost, Strasburg had a bad day,let's move on. Everyone needs to shut up and play. The center fielder needed to take charge on that texas lgr. The Shark had no business taking the blame for that, again, just stop all the talking and play baseball.

Just saw this on the Nats site. Atta way, Bob! (And this is the perfect opportunity for Billy to start partaking of that tasty red Nats beverage – right, Michele? ;-)) "Nationals TV broadcaster Bob Carpenter will be doing the play-by-play for the Nationals-Orioles game for FOX this Saturday at Nationals Park. His partner in the booth will be former Major Leaguer Billy Ripken. Carpenter, who has been the TV play-by-play voice of the Nationals since 2006, will also do the Nationals-Orioles game on June 23 for FOX when the teams play at Camden Yards. " May 16, 2012 8:13 AM

On another note, interesting tidbit for anyone who is in search of a media guide. As usual, early in the season I check at stores and stands to see whether they're in. As usual, no dice so far. But yesterday a gal at the team store on the club level said that they had been "lost in the stockroom" and that another batch had to be printed up. (How do you lose a shipment of media guides in the stockroom?) She couldn't say when more would be available. Oddly enough, I just checked and the guides are showing up for sale on e-bay from a number of different sellers. Things that make you go hmmmm….and it just happens to be the Bryce Harper rookie year guide. I'm just saying, "lost in the stockroom"…

1A.. Billy said he would start drinking the KoolAid if the Nats were still in it by the AllStar Break. Don't worry, I plan on holding him to it.Brother Juniper. For Henry, I was thinking a garter belt, or something so he can breathe through his eyelids.

Oh, I see a branding opportunity for the makers of Kool-Aid – put a Curly W on the packets and watch the sales go Bang! Zoom!On second thought, you're probably only talking about 20K-30K additional sales, which probably won't cover the printing costs.As you were, Mr. Kool-Aid.

Tcostant,I think you hit it on the head. This was a cllubhouse prank gone awry. If so, it was stupid because it probably cost them yesterday's ballgame.If you want to prank Stras before a spring training start, that's fine. But why would you do it prior to a regular season start? This club is already dealing with enough issues. When your ace takes the mound, you have to take advantage and lock up a win, especially when facing one of the worst teams in the NL.